Galaxy Tab S meltdown: too hot for its own good?

Heat is a fact of life with many mobile devices: when we crank up the brightness on our screens full-blast, or run software that pushes all a processor’s cores into overdrive, we expect a handset to heat up in the process. Running warm may be one thing, but it’s easy to take things too far, and on the upper end of the spectrum we’re looking at glitchy operation, spontaneous power-downs, or even outright damage to hardware. New reports suggest that the recently launched Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 may be suffering from some serious overheating issues, going so far as to warp the tablet’s plastic back.

At least, that’s what one of Hi-Tech.Mail.Ru‘s readers reports, where following some heavy usage of his new tablet, the Tab S 8.4 became so hot that it created visible regions of distortion on the device’s rear panel. It’s not clear how widespread problems like this may be, but Samsung’s been made aware of the incident and says that it’s “carefully considering” things.

One possible culprit is the tablet’s incredibly thin 6.6mm-thick build, placing that hot Exynos chip in very close proximity to plastic components. That’s not often a consequence we consider of thin construction (usually focusing on things like reduced room for a battery), but it may be something we need to start addressing in the future.

Stephen has been writing about electronics since 2008, which only serves to frustrate him that he waited so long to combine his love of gadgets and his degree in writing. In his spare time, he collects console and arcade game hardware, is a motorcycle enthusiast, and enjoys trapping blue crabs. Stephen's first mobile device was a 624 MHz Dell Axim X30, which he's convinced is still a viable platform. Stephen longs for a market where phones are sold independently of service, and bandwidth is cheap and plentiful; he's not holding his breath. In the meantime, he devours smartphone news and tries to sort out the juicy bitsRead more about Stephen Schenck!